The Roman army left Britain about AD 410. When they had gone there was no strong army to defend Britain, and tribes called the Angle, Saxon, and Jute (the Anglo-Saxons) invaded. They left their homelands in northern Germany, Denmark and northern Holland and rowed across the North Sea in wooden boats.

The Anglo-Saxons ruled most of Britain but never conquered Cornwall in the south-west, Wales in the west, or Scotland in the north.

Anglo-Saxon Britain

450

First invasions of the Jutes from Jutland, Angles from South of Denmark and Saxons from Germany.Britain is divided up into the Seven Kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Anglia, Wessex, Essex, Sussex and Kent.

450

Saxons Hengist and Horsa settle in Kent.

460

St Patrick returns to convert Ireland

516

The Battle of Mount Badon:
Britons under an unknown leader defeat the Angles and Saxons

597

St Augustine brings Christianity to England from Rome

King Æthelberht of Kent gave him land in Canterbury to build a church. Æthelberht became the first Anglo-Saxon king to turn his back on paganism and become Christian.

600

Æthelberht is now one of the most powerful kings in England

617

Northumbria becomes the Supreme Kingdom

627

Edwin of Northumbria becomes the first Christian king in the north of England

779

Mercia becomes the Supreme Kingdom and King Offa builds a Dyke along the Welsh Border